And Me

Weekend Rehash: What To Do When You Have So Much To Do

I have to admit to being completely and utterly unprepared in the blog writing world this week. It was Labour weekend this weekend so a long overdue 3 day holiday and I made the decision on Friday night to make it a technology free one. So this morning is the first time that I have been on a computer since Friday! I went on my phone for exactly 10 minutes on Sunday morning just to check that the All Blacks had indeed won their semi-final match and not come down with some unexplained case of food poisoning (ha!) and again on Monday to look up lemon trees because for a minute there when I nearly stabbed my eye out with the biggest sharpest thorn you have ever seen I began to wonder what the hell I had bought myself! Who knew lemon trees had thorns?! I certainly didn’t.

It was a very productive weekend and a very expensive one! The weather turned out to be brilliant after a forecast of rain for three days suddenly evaporated and left us all scrambling excitedly deciding what we wanted to achieve first.

You know those times where you have so much you want to do and so many things you want to buy that you don’t even know where to start? What I normally do with times like that is buy myself a large coffee and sit in the sun for two four hours doing nothing. Sometimes nothing is exactly what you should do when you have so much to do you don’t know where to start. Makes perfect sense! So Saturday I read a book. Yes, I read a WHOLE book. The boys darted around the deck on their bikes, Finn in his Little Tykes car making regular stops at my lazyboy chair that was half hanging out the open bi-fold doors.

‘Mummy, I go to Pak’n’Save and get ice-cream!’ ‘Ok, off you go!’ ‘Mummy! I forgot the yoghurts! I go back!’ ‘Uh huh’‘Mummy, I bought you a coffee!’ *hands me his toy phone so I can pretend to drink it before it gets snatched back* ‘It’s yucky! Yucky mummy! I take it back!’ (Oh dear, a mini me in the making!)

It was bliss! The boys were happy and I whipped my way through a fantastic book that I couldn’t put down (Lisa Unger – Crazy Love You. Read it!).

Sunday was the day to start being productive. I started by decluttering my clothes drawers and wardrobe, being ruthless and tossing away anything the had a hole, didn’t fit or I never wore.

Then I decided I wanted to start on the garden.

One small unpredictable problem with this idea – children. Small children (the toddler and pre-schooler kind) can make what should be an easy trip to the garden nursery a nightmare. I have a favourite plant nursery in a picturesque part of my home city and we decided to go for a drive on Sunday afternoon, first stopping to check out a beautiful stream that has a camping ground that you can literally turn up and pitch tent with no booking required AND you can light an open fire so it’s perfect for our little family to try out camping for the first time (well, first time since the husband and I snuck off when we were 12 years old, I’m hoping he’s learnt a thing or two since then!). We stopped at an ideal site to check it out, whipped out the picnic blanket and within 5 minutes one child had fallen in the stream and the other had fallen down a steep bank. I should have taken that as an omen, oh how I should have! But no, I decided to press ahead with the decision to take two small children (did I mention they hadn’t had a sleep that day?) to the plant nursery.

They took this as an invitation to run riot.

Finn spotted the only big deep muddy puddle and proceeded to jump in it before taking off at rocket speed towards the other end of the place (and this place is huge!) while Cohen decided it was ok to jump on someone elses trolley for a ride (those big two wheel jobbies). They then got so hyped up that they wouldn’t calm down or listen and ran out (with me yelling and running behind them) into the carpark and nearly got taken out by a car. Oh how they got told off and banished to Nana’s house after that while we went to their favourite store without them: Bunnings. Already hyped up crazy children and Bunnings where balloons on sticks are aplenty and now the invention of the blow up hammer and mini trolleys. Recipe for disaster.

In the end our day trip resulted in 4 shrubs I have no idea what to do with (they were hastily thrown on the trolley inbetween screaming and chasing bouts) or where to plant (and because it’s a nursery and not a garden centre they come with no identifying tags so I have no idea what I bought, nor where to put them or how large they grow!) and a lemon tree with spikes which has been planted in the biggest pot you have ever seen that I picked up for $50 while hunting for camping gear (always the way!).

Monday was spent weeding while my 4 year old thought it hilarious to pick up the biggest worms he could find and chase me with them ‘They’re not scary mummy! They’re just worms! Hold them!’. I am proud to say that I did manage to get the pots on my deck all decked out in flowers and greenery though, so I did manage to achieve something before we tossed the kids in the car, cracked open a Corona on the beach and let the kids bury themselves in sand.

What did you get up to this weekend? Do you hate taking your kids out in public too? Do they have a habit of running wild?

My weekend was just that too. Had a funeral all day Friday, sports and friends birthday and party Saturday and netball tournament all day Sunday. By Sunday night I was way too tired to blog – now I have very little this week.Natalie @ our parallel connection recently posted…A letter to my daughters

Sounds like a great weekend! I concur – sometimes, when the to-do list is overwhelming, doing nothing is the answer. (Although you went the other way after that few hours in the sun!) #teamIBOTEmily recently posted…Family quirks

I had the best Weekend- lunch with bloggy friends on Saturday followed by seeing Russell Brand. Sunday was Christmas shopping with the kids followed by a long soak in the bath. Bliss!Amy @ Handbagmafia recently posted…So, You Think You Can Do Shift Work?

Yep, I was utterly overwhelmed with my insanely long to do list that I simply shut down. Screw it, the list can wait. Seems like you still got stuff done and read a book!Malinda @mybrownpaperpackages recently posted…Taking the Sisterhood Offline

I worked through my weekend, with a few kids parties thrown in for fun 😉 My garden is screaming for attention….its on the list for a few weekends time 😉Josefa @always Josefa recently posted…Parenting Perfect Children

Sucky about work. Maintaining a garden is hard yakka! I have a blog post coming up about what NOT to do when starting a garden. I have sure learnt some valuable lessons in my second year of gardening that I wish I had known to do right in the beginning! Sure would have saved myself a lot of time and money.

It always, always seems like it’s going to work perfectly in our heads, then we actually go out in public with our kids, and it goes to shit. Every time. It’s like we trick ourselves into thinking, ‘This time it will be different. It has to be’. I had an indoor weekend as it was yuck weather here. Boring. But it was safer than being out in public with him ;).

I’m so glad someone else didn’t realise lemon trees had thorns either! Sharp little buggers they are too. Yep, the idea is always much much better than the reality. Next time I am going to leave them at home and tell them I’m just going to see a man about a dog 😉

On the plant thing though – I took Charlie to Bunnings to get herbs as all mine were dead, spindly and needed to be sent to herb heaven. I bought mint, rosemary, chives, sage and basil and have since planted everything but the last two. They are still sitting in the cardboard box THREE WEEKS LATER so I feel your pain!! Hard to plant with bubba always around…Rachel @ The Mama Files recently posted…A typical Sunday… with a one-year-old.

I love the sound of a technology free weekend! My boy is 12, so his idea of fun involves being glued to the computer/Playstation/tablet. No dice! I drag him out on exciting adventures (like exploring the tunnels at North Head, going to the beach and trying to find which park has the coolest playground), have family board game sessions and make him help me with the not so exciting gardening.
This weekend was a quiet one – my partner was working and my boy wasn’t here, so I had a quiet one to myself. So much sunshine and gardening went on – bliss!Meagan Kerr recently posted…Body positive hashtags to follow on instagram

Hahaha, I have visions of your little one chasing you with a worm! It sounds very similar to our visits to Bunnings. We had to bribe the girls to go on Sunday with them getting their face painted, but then I realised it was Sunday and wasn’t sure if the face painting lady was going to be there, thankfully she was! But of course only one wanted her face painted, while the other wanted to play in the playground. Then leaving they spotted the balloons on a stick (which my husband hates), which we got one so they’d stop complaining, only to have burst when Hubby put them in the boot of the car! So in the end he was happy, girls unhappy! PS. Go the Wallabies! 🙂Julie@Off to the park recently posted…Another dose of mother guilt

A trip to the nursery or Bunnings with my boys is always a recipe for disaster too! What could be a lovely trip selecting plants etc, ends up being a whirlwind trip, grabbing stuff and getting out of there before the tantrums escalate or something gets broken! Glad you managed some time to read your book though, I’ll have to check that one out.Emma @ Life, kids and a glass of red recently posted…DIY chalkboard

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About my blog

I love to have a good laugh (often at my own expense!) and entertain while also delving into the more serious side of life at times too. My blog is a hodge podge of parenting these two little monkeys, humour, funny anecdotes, inspiration, coffee (you will see this as a recurring theme!) and life in general.